Weekly Online Lending Snapshot – July 14, 2017

July 14, 2017 ·
Rob Marwanga, MBA Marketing Intern 2017

This week, there is a lot of news from the Asia-Pacific region. Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup announced that it raised $50 million in funding from Alibaba and the IFC. CompareAsiaGroup helps people in seven Asian Pacific countries compare and buy financial products including loans. Dashu, a Chinese online lender, recently announced the close of a $115 million Series C round. The company has issued over 200 billion yuan in unsecured loans over the past few years. Dianrong, another Chinese lender, disclosed that it has acquired the asset-origination operations of Quark Finance, a lender with over 70 borrowing centers in the country. Dianrong hopes to leverage Quark’s borrower relationships to increase originations. It was reported that Australian online lender, SocietyOne, has originated over $300 million since its start five years ago. This represents a milestone in a market that has not widely adopted online lending.

EY recently published its bi-annual Fintech Adoption Index report that showed the average percentage of respondents who reported using online borrowing has grown from 6% to 10%. It also showed that China leads the way in adopting online borrowing with 46% of respondents saying they had used some type of online lender. Toronto based Kilgour Williams has launched a $30 million fund that will invest in online U.S. originated loans, representing the first Canadian fund to do so. In wider industry news, Even Financial, an ad tech provider for financial services, has built a programmatic marketplace offering to help financial institutions deliver targeted ads to pre-approved consumers. This targeted advertising is expected to increase the number of people who convert to buying financial products such as loans. In securitizations, SoFi Professional Loan Program (SOFI 2017-D), filed form 15G with the SEC for a securitization of student loans. This will be the fourth student loan securitization of 2017 for SoFi.

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